Once upon a time, it was widely acknowledged that pregnant women should "eat for two". It was one of the few benefits of being pregnant, a rare perk that sat alongside mood swings, weight gain and nausea.

However, in the last few years, this has been dispelled as a myth – and most of us now know that you shouldn't literally double your calorie intake as soon as you find out you are pregnant. But do you know how much you should actually be eating when you are expecting? It is a lot less than most of us think.

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According to guidelines from the health watchdog NICE, women don't actually need any extra calories during the first six months of their pregnancy and in the last trimester, they only need to consume around 200 more.

Unsurprisingly, these are not numbers that a lot of people know – and this is of huge concern for doctors. According to research from the National Charity Partnership, more than two thirds of the women questioned believed they should be consuming more from the first or second trimester. A quarter of women also confessed to using the reasoning of "eating for two" as an excuse to eat unhealthily all of the time.

Alex Davis, head of prevention for the NCP told the BBC that this myth was "very unhelpful". He added that women should really be eating healthily and should not be consuming too much. This will help to reduce the risk of pregnancy-related complications and "stave off problems like type 2 diabetes and heart and circulatory disease in the long term".

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